the purpose of Wife to Charbonneau was of the Serpent Nation, and lately taken prisoner by a war party[.] She understood a little Gros Ventre, in which she had to converse with her husband, who was a Canadian and did not understand English[.] A Mulatto who spoke bad French and worse English served as Interpreter to the Captains – so that a single word to be understood by the party required to pass from the woman natives to to the woman, from the woman to the husband, from the husband to the mulatto, from the mulatto to the Captain[.] I was once present when vocabularys were making of the languages of the mandane Villages[.] The two Frenchmen who happened to be the medium of information had warm disputes upon the meaning of every word that was taken down by the Expedition[.] As the Indians could not well comprehend the intention of recording their words they concluded that the Americans had a wicked design upon their Country[.]

Buffaloes and other animals are in immense numbers destroyed every winter by the Mississourie Indians[.] In stormy weather whole droves run from the mississourie mountains and plains to seek shelter in the woods which form the margin of the mississourie[.] [M]any of them attempting

to cross

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